David Schuler made his annual pilgrimage Saturday to the pizza parlor of his youth, attended by little of the fanfare that has marked his sojourns in the past. In previous years, the Stoughton native has drawn national headlines for his patronage of Town Spa Pizza – even appearing in the National Enquirer and on the Ripley’s Believe it Or Not website.

The reason? At the end of a visit with family members who still live here, Schuler swings by Town Spa and drives away with hundreds of pizzas.

He doesn’t stop until he gets to Mississippi, where he has lived for the past 28 years. It’s 1,400 miles and close to 25 hours of driving. He usually goes straight through, he said, stopping for a short nap if he’s feeling groggy.

This year he has at least one stop planned: to drop some pizzas off with his niece, a student a the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

His order cost about $1,000 and took the staff at Town Spa since 6 a.m. Friday to prepare, said Town Spa manager Matt Phillips. The pizzas are partially baked, then set on racks to cool for about an hour, then carefully wrapped for the journey.

Last year he ordered 250 pizzas. This year, he said friends encouraged him to go even bigger with his order. Schuler couldn’t resist and purchased 251 pies this time.

Schuler said that in Mississippi most of the pizza is sold by chain restaurants that don’t have the character or quality of Town Spa.

“I grew up eating this pizza,” he said. “I really thought all pizza was like this until I moved.”

Schuler used to fly out to visit his family in Massachusetts, but even then he had to bring back some pizzas. He said he would load frozen pizzas in his suitcase, even bringing an empty suitcase a few times to fill with pizzas for the flight back.

“They made it back pretty good,” he said, but he just couldn’t get the volume he desired.